Funding Projections, courtesy of DC Streets

Tweet  The 18¢ per gallon tax on gasoline is scheduled to expire on Sept. 30, 2011. Will it expire? Will it be renewed? Will that immediately lower gasoline prices by 18¢? Will state or local governments add 18¢ to state or local taxes (or both)? Will gas station owners pocket some or all of the difference?

And what are the monies used for? The answer is roads and other transportation projects.

If the revenue disappears then new roads won’t be built and existing roads won’t be maintained.

In the long run, we may drive less. In the long run there may be less air pollution. And, as Keynes once said, “In the long run we are all dead.”

Links: Treehugger, DC Streets Blog, Antiplanner.

A few business executives have dreamed up a private-sector solution to the problem of secure bicycle parking in New York: the city’s first bikes-only parking lot. They have a space on West 33rd Street. All they need is a corporation willing to pay as much as $200,000 a year to sponsor it.

“We’re really looking for a big number to build something quite spectacular,” said Daniel A. Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership. “We want this to be the premier bike parking facility in the country.”

Already, the group has cleared one high hurdle: Stonehenge Management, a developer, has offered a 2,600-square-foot lot next to an apartment building it owns on the north side of 33rd Street between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue, Mr. Biederman said.

The partnership, which is financed by businesses and property owners in a 31-block section of Midtown, has developed a preliminary design for the lot and has ordered up a prototype of the racks it would contain, Mr. Biederman said. At first, it would hold 100 bikes, with room to expand if there is more demand, he said.

A Bikes-Only Parking Lot in Midtown?

Jen Chung at Gothamist and Al Baker of the Times have good coverage of the new, much-increased Department of Homeland Security grant to provide security for New York City subways, including the 16 underwater tunnels that link the boroughs to each other, and to the mainland (the Bronx, of course, is actually on the mainland). From Gothamist:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million – up from last year’s $61 million – in transit security grants. Wow – all we can do is remember Chertoff’s 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, “The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you’re going to think about making sure you don’t have a catastrophic thing first.”

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The money will be spit up between the MTA, NJ Transit and Amtrak, with 20% going to the NYPD. And Kelly revealed to the AP the funding enabled a new subway initiative, Operation Torch, to be up and running in three weeks: “You’ll see officers with automatic weapons, you will see additional bomb-sniffing dogs funded by this program.” Um, yay? And two other interesting facts, from NY1: “The MTA alone moves half of all mass transit riders in the nation” and, post- September 11, Homeland Security has spent $24 billion on aviation security but a little over half a billion on transit security.

Jen Chung, Homeland Security Boosts NYC Transit Security Funds

, on Gothamist.

We draw no inferences about the cause of the change in the Secretary’s attitude about New York City and mass transit, but would like to think that he was persuaded on the merits.

From New Operation to Put Heavily Armed Officers in Subways, by Al Baker:

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, police patrols increased in the subways, particularly at the entrances to the 16 underwater tunnels. As terrorists have hit rail systems around the world, the police in New York have reacted with strategies tailored to thwart similar attacks.

For instance, after the bombings of three trains and a bus in London on July 7, 2005, police officials in New York took steps to protect the city’s subways, including random inspections of train riders’ backpacks and packages, a program that continues today.

“New York remains at the top of the terrorist target list, and mass transit remains a concern because it has been targeted many times around the world,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement released by his chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “There have been several thwarted plots against New York’s subway system as well.”

Each team in the operation will comprise a bomb-sniffing dog and six officers: a dog handler and a sergeant and four officers from the Emergency Service Unit who will be outfitted in heavy, bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets and will carry automatic weapons, either an M-4 rifle or an MP5 submachine gun.

The officers will work in shifts of 12 hours to provide as much coverage of the subway system as possible, Mr. Browne said.

We have a couple of questions about this. First, calling this project “Operation Torch,” the name for the Allied invasion of north Africa in November 1942, commanded by General Eisenhower. There are several possibe meanings: the subways are a “second front” (the strategic thinking behind Operation Torch was to relieve pressure on the Russians by forcing the Germans to fight on two fronts at once); they picked the name for some other reason, and don’t know or care about World War II; Mayor Bloomberg is like F.D.R.; Commissioner Kelly is like Eisenhower.

Second, since we’ve now got officers on routine patrol carrying more powerful weapons, and in enclosed spaces:

• Has any consideration been given to what rounds (ammunition) will be used in the subways, given the possibility that rounds – even after they’ve penetrated a body (or two), may well hit surfaces – like steel columns – from which they might ricochet;
• Having given these officers this large responsibility and equipment which, for a police department, aren’t routine – and given our other deadly-force issues – will these offcers be given routine ongoing training – rather than the typical New York City twice-a-year on the range requalification?

The Swiss Firm MW Line makes solar boats that are ferrying people around lakes and rivers in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only backup power, apparently, is on-shore charging from the grid. They’re also the shipbuilder for the PlanetSolar project which plans to have a solar-only craft in the water ready for a two-person, 120-day around-the-world trip in 2009.

The New York Times reported on January 4th that New York Water Taxi, the only operator of Queens/Manhattan and Brooklyn/Manhattan ferry service has cancelled service for the winter – largely because of fuel price increases. That notwithstanding a monthly subsidy from the real estate developers who established Schaefer’s Landing, a high-end project in Williamsburgh. A ferry powered by photovoltaic cells wouldn’t be directly affected, if at all, by petroleum price increases. Given the relatively short distances involved, on-board solar panels and batteries could be supplemented with electricity dockside. If that electricity is generated via wind (often best captured on or near water) or solar, ferry operating costs could be insulated from petroleum price fluctuations.